This would also help to track all the students throughout the school-cycle. (Photo: Agency)

The central government is creating a student-wise database of all the students enrolled in school in India. Under the project, Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE) managed by National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), data of school teachers and students are being collected.

Minister of State (HRD), Upendra Kushwaha in a written reply to a Lok Sabha informed that as an integral part of the U-DISE, the department of School Education & Literacy has initiated SDMIS in 2016-17 to collect child-wise data with Aadhaar number.

Every student is provided a Unique Student ID generated through the system which would lead to the creation of a National level student-wise database giving full details of all students in all Government, Aided and Private schools from standard I to standard XII. This would also help to track all the students throughout the school-cycle.

An IT based initiative under the District Primary Education Project (DPEP) was implemented for the first time in India in 1995 to create a school education management information system.

The school based computerized Education Management Information System (EMIS) initiated in 1995 by NUEPA (the then NIEPA1) with support from MHRD and financial assistance from UNICEF was known as the District Information System for Education (DISE2). Beginning with 42 districts in seven states (Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu), the coverage of DISE was later on expanded to include 271 districts across 18 states with the scaling up of the DPEP.

The parents blamed the school for arm-twisting the girls into signing the written admission. The school said the move was aimed at bringing the students on “the right course”.

The incident brings to question whether the school’s naming and shaming of the students reek of a homophobic attitude prevalent in schools. (Express Photo by Abhinav Saha/Representational)When it comes to disciplining students, authorities at Kamala Girls’ School in south Kolkata clearly seem to have a skewed perspective. On March 8, ten students of the school were made to sign a “confession” letter that they were lesbians. The parents of the girls, however, did not take it lying down and stormed into the room of the acting headmistress on Monday and got into a heated argument with her. The parents blamed the school for arm-twisting the girls into signing the written admission. The school said the move was aimed at bringing the students on “the right course”.

A school official, on the condition of anonymity, said: “It was a simple act of disciplining the students. They were being naughty in class so they were called into the office of the headmistress and were made to sign a confession. The parents were called to sort out the matter and have a discussion but they overreacted saying their girls were forced to sign it. They probably thought this was similar to the sexual assault case that happened in February and that we were at fault. We have given back the signed letters to the parents.”

The acting headmistress Sikha Sarkar, however, claimed that a few students had complained about the ten students indulging in “such behaviour”. “We called those students and they admitted it. Considering the sensitive nature of the issue, I asked them to admit it in writing. I have got written admissions from all 10 students,” IANS quoted the acting headmistress as saying. The acting headmistress further told the news agency, “Today we called the guardians to apprise them of the issue. Our aim was to discuss the matter with them so that we can bring these girls on the right course through efforts both at home and in school.”

Malobika, co-founder, Kolkata-based NGO Sappho for Equality – The Activist Forum For Lesbian, Bisexual Woman and Transman Rights – wonders why the authorities had to shame the girls and force them to sign a confession. “What happened with those girls is abhorrent. Not only were they singled out on the basis of a few complaints, which could very well have been pranks, I don’t understand what purpose did the whole exercise serve? Are students in co-ed schools asked to write a confession about their heterosexuality when they are seen spending time together?”

Sappho for Equality plans to investigate what made the school authorities decide to go forward with their line of action. The incident brings to question whether the school’s naming and shaming of the students reek of a homophobic attitude prevalent in schools.

Sayantani Roy, a former student of Kamala Girls’ School who passed out in 2006, says the school has traditionally frowned upon “intense friendships between girls”. “It’s not just this school. The whole atmosphere in traditional girls school is very oppressive. I remember we had a teacher who would take it upon herself to scold us if we displayed even a tiny bit of affection to our classmates. The term “lesbian” was flung around like it’s a swear word,” says Roy who works for a start-up in Bangkok now.

Soumali Chakraborty, another former student of the school who passed out in 2007, says a lot of students choose to not confide in their teachers about their “confusions”. “They fear discrimination. I had a classmate who wrote me love letters. I didn’t know how to react to it but even then I knew if I told my teachers about this, the girl would be penalised for it. I remained friends with her,” says Soumali, an employee of an IT firm in Bengaluru.http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/i-am-a-lesbian-kolkata-girls-school-forces-10-students-to-confess-in-writing-5096507/

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Akshaya Patra’s first kitchen in London serves 2,000 vegetarian meals to poor students and the homeless

Naomi Canton

At Kentish Town in northwest London, around 40 poor men queue up for a paper plate of steaming vegetable stew and rice. “It’s a life-saver in this freezing cold,” explains Andrew Moran, 53, one of the group. “A lot of people would starve otherwise.”

For the past two years, Akshaya Patra FoundationUK/Europe focus has been on fundraising to help pay for 1.6 million midday meals for schoolchildren in India. But the Indian charity has now turned its attention to the poor in Britain.

It has opened its first kitchen in London and started serving 2,000 nutritious vegetarian meals per day for free to students and the homeless. Next, it will expand to schoolchildren, the elderly and hospital patients. Half a million children go to school hungry in the UK, 70,000 of whom live in London.

A 2,000-sqft makeshift kitchen has been carved out of the basement of a building in Holborn where members of the UK charity Food for All make vegetable stew, pasta, and superfood porridge. Akshaya Patra has teamed up with the charity to cook and distribute the food in vans and by rickshaws to three feeding points in London for homeless people, and to SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and LSE (London School of Economics) for poor students.

“Food for All had the manufacturing licences and experience. We will scale it up and make it more organised,” says CEO Bhawani Singh Shekhawat. The philosophy is the same as that used to create mid-day meals but recipes are suited to the local palate. “We don’t offer sambar but it is still ayurvedic, protein-balanced food with no additives and we don’t reheat,” he adds.

Last summer, as a pilot the charity offered meals to 100 schoolchildren at a holiday club at Newham Catholic College. In the UK three million children go hungry during the holidays. “There are families of six living on a food budget of £80 a month who cannot afford to feed their children. Many working parents send their children to these holiday clubs with a bag of crisps. The last meal they had was at 6pm the night before. It is the responsibility of the state but there is a lack of funding,” says Shekhawat.

At the kitchen, Parasuram Das, who founded Food For All and is the head of manufacturing at the Akshaya Patra UK project, is delighted. He had emailed Goldman Sachs the day before, introducing himself as a new bank next door to theirs — except his was a “food bank.” “The next morning they were down here seeing how they could help,” he says. As we speak someone from a building company working on the construction of Goldman Sachs’ new London offices arrives and offers to pay for all the paper plates worth £250 a week and a £35 sack of dal a day.

Das goes around supermarkets each evening collecting wonky vegetables, short-dated products and supermarket surplus which he uses to make dishes. He also receives donations from wholesalers who supply Indian supermarkets in the UK.

The first feeding point is in Kentish Town. Among the waiting group is a retired painter Thomas, 66, who survives on a state pension of £135 per week. “After bills there is not enough money left for food,” he says.

Next we head to SOAS where there is a queue of 50 students. Polish Olga Iskra, 23, says: “I come here most days as I am on a really low budget.” Fellow student, Anthony Krowicki, 22 adds: “The quality of food is amazing and the university canteen is bad and expensive.”

At King’s Cross, a crowd of homeless men is waiting. One man in a black anorak, who has been sleeping rough for 20 years, says: “The food is excellent, they don’t pester me for money and I like the concept of communal eating. This is my only meal of the day.”

Shekhawat says they have already been approached by organisations in Spain and Italy. “They are saying to us, ‘You think it’s just an Indian problem?’ Inequality is a global problem so to classify countries as rich or poor is increasingly irrelevant and far too broad a generalisation.”

MEALS FOR ALL: Akshaya Patra volunteer Dominic, 40, hands out free porridge, vegetable stew and rice to students of SOAS, many of whom struggle with the high cost of living in London

Hyderabad:A key document in the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case containing a disclosure by Hindu right-wing member Swami Aseemanand, which could seal the fate of the trial, has gone mysteriously missing from a lower court’s custody.

The revelation came after chief investigating officer and CBI SP T Rajah Balaji on Tuesday began recording his evidence. Balaji filed the first chargesheet before the case was transferred to the NIA.

On May 18, 2007, a bomb blast inside the Mecca Masjid during Friday prayers killed nine people and injured 58 others. Later, more people were killed when the police opened fire on protesters. As part of the trial, more than 160 witnesses were examined by the court that includes victim, RSS pracharaks and several others.

Aseemanand was granted bail in April 2017 on the condition that he can’t leave Hyderabad and Secunderabad.

On Tuesday, K Ravinder Reddy, the fourth Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge cum special court for NIA cases, came down heavily on court officials after several documents pertaining to the case couldn’t be traced. The proceedings of the case had to be stalled by more than one and half hours before officials could trace some of the documents that were exhibited before the court.

Balaji was taken by surprise after a key two-page document relating to the reported disclosure made by Naba Kumar Sarkar aka Swamy Aseemanand before CBI, explaining the alleged conspiracy, was not traceable. The document, marked as “Memo of Disclosure” No 88 in NIA chargesheet, reportedly contains names of senior RSS leaders.

The missing document is believed to be of much importance and can seal the fate of Aseemanand in the case, investigators said.

During investigation, the CBI officer examined 68 witnesses in the case, out of which 54 have turned hostile, including DRDO scientist Vadlamani Venkat Rao, who is the prosecution witness No 151 in the case.

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Key Tasks Given To Uneducated Workers: Probe

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Mumbai:The Director of Industrial Safety and Health (DISH) in its inquiry report on the Tarapur MIDC fire has found serious lapses on the part of Novaphene Specialities Pvt Ltd, the factory from where a blaze spread to four other units last week.

It found that Novaphene had not appointed a qualified chemical engineer, which is mandatory in a hazardous unit. The worker, Raju Raote, who is said to be uneducated and has no knowledge about the properties of the chemicals he handled, was given the task of increasing the reactor’s steam.

On Thursday, the day of the fire, Raote was handling the task of increasing the reactor’s steam. He panicked after the raw material crossed the boiling point and called manager Hemraj Paratne, who was at home. Paratne asked Raote and the workers to leave the factory immediately. Raote and the workers of Novaphene escaped unhurt as they left before the glass-lined reactor exploded and caught fire.

Soon the fire had spread to the adjoining Aarti Drugs, killing three of its workers and leaving 14 persons injured. Nachched Singh (62), a security guard with the adjoining Prachi Pharmaceuticals who was injured in one of the 40 blasts during the fire, died on Monday.

A day later, on Tuesday, the police arrested one of the owners, Saral Shah, manager Paratne, chemist Gyandeep Mhatre and the worker Raote under sections 304 (a) (causing death by negligence), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act enartdangering life or personal safety of others), 285, 286, 287 (negligence) and 427 (mischief) of the Indian Penal Code. They were released on bail on a personal bond and cash surety of Rs 15,000 each by the Palghar court.

Novaphene manufactures Grignard reagents, which are formed by the reaction of magnesium metal with alkyl or alkenyl halides, a hazardous process. On Tuesday, a separate offence was registered by DISH under the Factories Act before the chief judicial magistrate, Thane, against Dinesh Shah, another owner and the person in whose name the factory is registered. The charge was that Novaphene was making chemicals for which it did not have permission.

The DISH report also said that Novaphene had not conducted the mandatory safety audit since 2015. DISH Joint Director (Safety) H Dhawad, who prepared the report, was himself issued a showcause notice asking why action should not be taken against him for the lapses.

Besides Novaphene, Aarti Drugs and Prachi Pharmaceuticals, the other units affected by the fire were Bharat Rasayan and Unimax. There are some 1,100 chemical units in Tarapur MIDC. After a recent meeting with district officials, DISH was directed to inspect all the chemical units but no check was undertaken.

NEW DELHI: It was terrible Tuesday for the BJP. The party is on the way to losing bye-elections in two Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, and missed out on a chance to snatch one constituency from the RJD in Bihar. The BJP and JDU also failed to secure two Assembly seats in Bihar and only retained a seat that the BJP had won on its own in 2015.

The BJP was significantly behind Samajwadi Party candidates in both seats. In Gorakhpur, BJP’s Upendra Dutt Shukla trailed SP’s Pravin Nishad by close to 15,000 votes after 14 rounds of counting. In Phulpur, SP’s Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel enjoyed a lead of over 20,000 votes over BJP’s Kaushalendra Singh Patel.

The loss in UP’s Gorakhpur and Phulpur constituencies is bound to sting the BJP, especially Gorakhpur. The last time BJP or its associate organisations did not win the seat was in 1984, when the Congress won in the sympathy wave after the Indira Gandhi assassination. In the that election, the Congress had swept battles across the country, winning in 404 constituencies.

The loss of Phulpur may not dent morale, considering 2014 was the first time ever that the BJP won the constituency. However, what could worry the ruling BJP is that in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, it had won both constituencies with humongous margins – Gorakhpur by 3.13 lakh votes and Phulpur by 3.08 lakh votes.

In the bye-election to Bihar’s Araria Lok Sabha constituency, BJP’s Pradeep Kumar Singh failed to take the seat back. He had lost to RJD’s Mohammed Taslimuddin in 2014, and is now trailing to his son, Sarafaraz Alam, by about 24,000 votes. Significant however is the fact that BJP has managed to sharply thin the margin – it had lost in 2014 by 1.47 lakh votes.

In the bypoll to the Jehanabad Assembly seat, RJD Kumar Krishna Mohan Yadav led JDU’s Abhiram Sharma by over 32,000 votes. The RJD candidate’s father, Mundrika Singh Yadav, had won in 2014 with a margin of 30,000 votes.

The Bhabua seat was the lone lining of silver in an otherwise dark day for the BJP. The party’s candidate, Rinki Rani Pandey, is ahead by about 24,000 votes. Her late husband, Anand Bhushan Pandey, had won by about 8,000 votes in 2015.

HIGHLIGHTS

This is not the first time that the anonymous hacker has pointed out chinks in Indian websites’ security

Over the past few months, many vulnerabilities pointed out by the hacker have, in fact, even been reportedly fixed after being exposed

NEW DELHI: The anonymous hacker who claims to be a French security researcher and goes by the name of Elliot Alderson on micro-blogging site Twitter, once again on Tuesday sought to expose the vulnerability of Indian government websites. Alderson — a name which is perhaps inspired from the American television series Mr. Robot’s main protagonist who goes by the same name and is a cybersecurity engineer and vigilante hacker — posted some screenshots on Twitter along with a URL of the Andhra Pradesh government’s website about how biometric data and Aadhaar card scans of people were openly available.

The alleged French security expert, Elliot Alderson, who created a storm recently by claiming to have accessed over twenty thousand Aadhaar card specifics on a single day by using a simple internet search tool is back in the news. On Wednesday, he posted a video from his Twitter handle @fs0c131y titled “How to bypass the password protection of the official #Aadhaar #android #app in 1 minute”. In this video he points out an alleged basic flaw in the Aadhaar Android app. Before this he had reportedly exposed some flaws in BSNL, Paytm and Indian Postal Service systems too. The common thing about all these hacks was that he contacted the concerned organizations on an open platform while pointing out these vulnerabilities.

India Today has spoken to this ethical hacker who goes by the name Elliot Alderson on social media but his real name according to him is Baptiste Robert. Identifying himself as a freelance Android developer who works for phone makers, Robert expressed his inability to give a formal interview over camera or phone and chose to respond to India Today’s questions in writing.

Clarifying his claims of accessing almost 20,000 Aadhaar cards in a single day, he said “these cards can be found on the internet. Everything is public, no hack is required. You only need to use Google. These cards have not been found on the UIDAI server”. He elaborated how one can misuse the Aadhaar by physically accessing the device with the Android app. Asked about the main flaw of Aadhar system, Robert told India Today “the main issue with the Aadhaar Android app is that if an attacker has a physical access to the device, he can easily bypass the password mechanism they put in place in the app”. Even in the video posted on Twitter he argues that “the attacker needs a physical access to the phone, rooted phone is not needed and yes this is for the latest version of the app”.

The UIDAI has issued a statement saying “by simply knowing someone’s Aadhaar, one cannot impersonate and harm the person because Aadhaar alone is not sufficient to prove one’s identity but it requires biometrics to authenticate one’s Identity”. Robert has responded to UIDAI’s comments by saying “they (UIDAI) also said that the Aadhaar card is an identity document which is inconsistent with their statement”. When we asked him to give one piece of advice for ordinary citizens who use Aadhaar and don’t want their data to be compromised, he replied “it’s complicated, first don’t use the Aadhaar Android App at all, be cautious when you give your Aadhaar card to anyone”.

When India Today asked about his motivation behind exposing the security flaws which largely affects a foreign country he said “I just want to point these flaws and help companies to fix it. I’m not motivated by the money at all”. “Security is important. As a company, it is your duty to protect your user data” he concluded by reminding the organizations which seek user data. While UIDAI issued a statement saying “It is reiterated that Aadhaar remains safe and secure and there has not been a single breach from its biometric database during that last eight years of its existence” social media is once again abuzz with debate over vulnerability of Aadhar data.

The URL seems to have been blocked after the hacker’s tweet. This is not the first time, Alderson has pointed out chinks in Indian websites’ security — both government and otherwise. Over the past few months, many vulnerabilities pointed out by the anonymous vigilante hacker have, in fact, even been reportedly fixed after being exposed.

(Screenshot shared by ‘Elliot Alderson’)

To recap, Alderson is the same person who had flagged that digital payments company Paytm was asking its Android users for ‘root access’ to their phones which would have effectively given the company complete access to a user’s device. While Paytm has now stopped asking for the access, it maintains that the earlier request was on the back of requirements laid down by payments umbrella body, NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) which mandates checking if a device is rooted.

However, the vigilante seems to have been especially focused on exposing Aadhaar — the 12 digit unique identification number based on biometric and demographic data — related security flaws and vulnerabilities.

(Screenshot shared by ‘Elliot Alderson’)

All this while though, UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) — the body which controls and issues the biometrics-based identities has maintained that the system is “safe and secure”. Interestingly, Alderson has pointed out that he’s not necessarily against Aadhaar.

The folk who put food on your platter

PARTH M.N.

In 2009, senior journalist P Sainath released a documentary called ‘Nero’s Guests’ on the agrarian crisis in India. It concludes with Sainath’s speech, in which he shares a piece of ancient history involving Nero, the infamous Roman emperor, whose reign witnessed a fire that destroyed half of Rome in AD 64.

When Rome burned and Nero could not control the fire, he decided to throw a party to divert people’s attention from it. The guests included all the elites of the time. But there was no provision to light up the huge garden supposed to accommodate the laundry list of guests. To conquer the problem, Nero summoned prisoners who were about to be hanged or were facing a life in prison and burned them alive in the periphery of the garden. The fire ensured the party went ahead without any difficulties.

As horrific as it sounds, Sainath makes an important point in the speech. “The problem is not Nero,” he says. “What did Nero’s guests do? Did they speak out against it?”

I remembered ‘Nero’s Guests’ this week after tens of thousands of farmers marched into Mumbai from Nashik. I covered the rally from the beginning. Majority of the responses I received on social media trivialised the march, for the red communist flags had swamped the visuals. It is political, they said, organised by “commies”, and does not reflect the agrarian distress. The “apolitical” middle class could not whine about traffic because despite walking the whole day, farmers decided to continue through the night and reached Azad Maidan before sunrise to avoid causing any inconvenience to students appearing for board exams on March 12.

Yes, it was organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ collective of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Those leading the march were dedicated members of the party. But the ones walking behind them were ordinary farmers, tired of false promises. And there were over 35,000 of them from across Maharashtra, fighting for land rights, better rates, loan waivers and pension.

In the first 10 months of 2017, Maharashtra witnessed 2,414 farm suicides. Over a thousand of them were reported after the state announced the loan waiver, which was, at best, a decent attempt at innovating caveats. Reports suggest that the farm sector in the state is expected to post negative growth of 14.4 per cent.

The most important promise of setting minimum support prices at 1.5 times the production cost remains unfulfilled. In October last year, I travelled through the cotton belt of Parbhani district, where a farmer in his early 30s explained how the current pricing policy ends up digging their grave. He called his uncle, who farmed on the same 15-acre land until 2001-02. Both of them listed the production cost of their respective times and juxtaposed it with returns. It turned out the uncle roughly made Rs 11,000 behind an acre of cotton. The nephew, 15 years later, manages to earn around Rs 14,000. Now compare the rise in salaries of teachers or government servants in the past 15 years, he said.

I did. The Seventh Pay Commission increased the salaries of teachers by 22 per cent to 28 per cent from what they earned in 2008. MPs have received a staggering 1,250 per cent salary hike over the past two decades.

The CPI(M) merely channelised the resentment. If the Left could organise a march of 35,000 bogus farmers, they wouldn’t be paying Rs 8,000 bucks a month to full-time members. Irrespective of whether one agrees with their ideology, deriding the march is mocking those who walked to Mumbai because their dear ones committed suicide due to indebtedness. Trivialising the rally is looking down upon the 60-year old tribal woman who lumbered for seven days in scorching heat, leaving her labour work behind. If she had stayed back, she would have made around Rs 600 rupees and avoided the expenses she incurred during the protest. Yes, the farmers participated on their own expenses, trudged 170 km with injuries and blisters.

However, the insensitivity of the section of urban centres is more unsurprising than deplorable. Though some groups in Mumbai extended a heartwarming welcome to the protesters by offering food, water and biscuits.

In August 2015, Nashik had been prepping for the Kumbh Mela, for which Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis diverted 3 TMC water for the royal dip of pilgrims. However, it was diverted from the agrarian region of Marathwada, which had been suffering from acute drought. I was in Jalna at the time, covering farmers climbing down their parched wells, digging at the bottom until a muddy puddle of water formed, which they used to fill their empty pots. Merely 240 km away, thousands of people were getting drenched, supposedly washing off their sins.

In June 2017, farmers had declared a strike in Maharashtra, where they threw away their vegetables and milk on the road to express their anger. At the same time, a WhatsApp forward went viral. The message listed celebrities like Sachin Tendulkar and quoted the love and respect they have towards their profession. The message ended with a sarcastic line: Please do not link this to the current farm unrest.

The proliferation of social media has contributed to the bitterness of farmers. The distance between Mumbai and Latur, for example, is no longer as much as it used to be. The apathy in Mumbai reaches Latur and contributes negatively. We cannot do much to alleviate the farm distress, but the least we can do is not aggravate it by passing loose comments sitting in our ivory tower.

The writer is a fellow with People’s Archive of Rural India, where he documents the agrarian crisis in Marathwada

Waiting at the office of National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) in New Delhi, I distinctly remember the moment he entered the hallway in his wheelchair. After finishing up with some immediate matters at hand, he greeted me into his cabin, and was very encouraging towards the idea of running a focused campaign on the rights of persons with disability.

His enthusiasm was contagious. Handing me the copies of different documents, such as the Persons With Disabilities Act 1995, The Rights of Persons With Disabilities (RPWD) Act 2016, and its guidelines, and The National Building Code of India 2016, Abidi explained the importance of each. He never mentioned how, through his activism and advocacy, he was involved in each of these hard fought victories for a sizable Indian population.

An unmatched legacy

Born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, Abidi studied in the US and moved to India at the age of 24 to pursue a career in journalism. A wheelchair user since the age of 15, he soon got involved in disability awareness. In 1993, Abidi created the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation‘s Disabilities Unit. Since 1997, Abidi has been serving as Director of NCPEDP, created by The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.

In 1994, Abidi joined a small advocate group called the Disability Rights Group, a movement that soon gained much momentum. On December 19, 1995, Abidi led a protest before the Parliament, which led to the passing of the Persons With Disabilities Act three days later.

Over the past two-and-a-half decades, Abidi led many pathbreaking initiatives in disability rights advocacy. These include inclusion of disability as a separate category in the national census, making polling booths accessible, and setting up of a separate Department of Disability Affairs. In 2007, Abidi’s activism led to India signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), an international treaty that recognises the rights of persons with disabilities. Most recently, Abidi shaped the movement that led to the formation of India’s new disability rights law, the RPWD Act, 2016.

He was one of the pioneers in creating a cross-disability movement in India, encouraging people with different disabilities to work on common and collective solutions. As the director of NCPEDP, Abidi worked with companies like Apple, Oracle, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, among others, to create greater work opportunities for disabled individuals. He also worked closely on accessibility for the disabled, helping to make workplaces and public spaces accessible for persons with disabilities.

End of an era

I remember asking him how we, as media, can create the maximum impact to raise awareness around accessibility for the disabled. He replied, albeit jokingly, by saying we must get a few under-construction buildings – which are inaccessible by design – demolished. “Or a stay order on them will also shake the system. They are anyway illegal by law,” he had quickly added.

The fearless activist passed away on Sunday, succumbing to a chest infection, which he was suffering from over the past week. “Javed was having breathing problem for the past few weeks due to smog and bad weather. He got a chest infection four-five days ago,” his friend told IANS.

He is survived by his mother and two siblings. His sister, Sheeba Abidi, wrote, “All I can say is that my brother went away just as he wanted. Quickly and peacefully.” She added,

[He] wanted to go doing what he loved best. He was super excited about getting the new law translated into regional languages and workshops conducted on awareness about the new law… worrying about Aadhaar for disabled, people with leprosy and other marginalised disabilities and many other initiatives that his friends and colleagues from the sector know much better about. He was a fighter. A survivor.

@javed_abidi, a revolution. The disability movement has lost a courageous leader & a firebrand activist today. He said that advocacy leads to changes, impact of some of which we might not witness in our lifetime but would transform lives of so many who come after us @narendramodi

Long overlooked problem

Estimates suggest that 15 percent of the world’s population suffers from one disability or the other. According to Census data, India’s differently-abled population stands at 2.68 crore. The World Bank’s estimates peg this number to be much higher, at 8 crore. Other independent agencies suggest this number to be even higher.

Unlike the developed world, a majority of India’s disabled population are made further vulnerable by lack of quality education, lack of women’s safety, social ostracisation, and lack of support. As a sizeable chunk of the population of India, they continue to grapple with the challenges of access, acceptance, and inclusion.

Sanghis vandalised Pushpa Hospital in Ujjain, MP on March 12, 2018. The Catholic Church has been running this hospital since 1976 and it is legal. Sanghis even brought a JCB but the police turned up only after the destruction was complete.

A mob attacked Pushpa Mission Hospital on March 12. (Credit: Father Antony/Archdiocese of Bhopal.)

MUMBAI, India – A Catholic hospital in India was attacked by a mob on March 12, leading to the destruction of the institution’s water and power supply. Several nurses were also injured in the attack.

The Pushpa Mission Hospital is located in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, and is the oldest medical facility in the area.

A missionary hospital in Ujjain was allegedly attack by a group of locals led by BJP activists on Monday following a dispute over a piece of land, which both sides claim belong to them.

Carrying a JCB the group damaged the hospital gate, a generator and disrupted electric and water supply striking fear among patients and staff, alleged PRO of Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh Fr Maria Stephen. He said nurses who tried to stop the attackers were harmed and beaten up. He said nearly 100 people pulled down the compound wall and put up an iron fencing inside the hospital premises.

Though several police personnel passed by no one intervened and the attack continued unabated. The hospital came up in 1974 when there were no health care facilities in villages. Sisters and doctors went to nearby villages and conducted many camps and supplied free medicines.

BJP MP from Ujjain and party spokesman Chintamani Malviya, however, alleged that the hospital had encroached on a private person’s land. He said the minority community lost in both high court and the lower court after which the land owner demolished the unauthorized construction on Monday. He denied that the owner or his men attacked nurses claiming that no one was required to enter the hospital premises. He claimed even after losing the court cases the hospital was not ready to vacate the encroachment. He said the district administration had recently marked out areas owned by both parties.

A delegation led by Bishop of Ujjain called on Governor Anandiben Patel who was in the town for a scheduled visit. “The entire Catholic church is shocked to know about the planned attack. Minorities feel unsafe in the midst of repeated attacks on Church personnel and Christian institutions. Archbishop of Bhopal Leo Cornelio strongly condemned an alleged attack on Pushpa Mission Hospital, Ujjain, calling it a systematic planning to create disturbance and violence.

Father Maria Stephen, the public relations officer for the Church in the Madhya Pradesh region, told Crux that the mob was made up of nearly 60 people, and also damaged the hospital gate, and terrified the hospital patients and staff.

A Church official said the mob was led by Gagan Singh, the personal secretary of Chintamani Malviya, a Member of Parliament.

The attack may be connected to a land disputed over a property adjacent to the hospital, which the Diocese of Ujjain had refused to hand over to Singh.

Bishop Sebastian Vadakel told Crux the attack is “definitely an act against the Christian community.”

“This dispute began around the end of January, where false claims were made of the ownership. We have all proper valid legal documents to prove ownership rights,” the head of the Ujjain diocese said.

Vadakkel led a delegation of Catholic dignitaries to meet the state governor Anandiben Patel, who was on a visit to Ujjain when the attack took place.

“We the minorities feel unsafe in the midst of repeated attacks on the Church personnel and institutions,” Stephen said.

“We want an explanation why the hospital has been attacked? There were nearly a hundred people who launched the attack on the front yard of emergency gate of the hospital, dug of the exit and pulled down the compound wall,” the priest said. “They even put up iron fencing on war footing inside the premise of the hospital. Despite several police vehicles passing by, not even a constable has turned up at the site while hooligans sitting at the encroached hospital front yard and abusing the media when they asked for explanations.”